SoBo family will get Rs 21L for faulty gall bladder op

The state consumer commission on Friday ordered a doctor to pay a compensation of Rs 21 lakh to the daughter of a Lower Parel woman who died after developing septicemia following an unsuccessful procedure conducted by him for the removal of gall bladder stones at his nursing home in 2001.Rebecca Samervel | TNN | August 17, 2015, 03:47 IST

MUMBAI: The state consumer commission on Friday ordered a doctor to pay a compensation of Rs 21 lakh to the daughter of a Lower Parel woman who died after developing septicemia following an unsuccessful procedure conducted by him for the removal of gall bladder stones at his nursing home in 2001.

“No explanation is coming forth on behalf of the doctor as to why, as a prudent medical professional, he tried to risk the life of the patient by carrying out open surgery for removal of stones when he was unable to trace the location of the stone in the common bile duct. He should have taken the decision to refer the patient to the other hospital instead of carrying out an operation at his own nursing home which was not capable of dealing with complications as the one in case of the complainant,” the Maharashtra State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission stated.

The complaint was filed by Dhnashri Savardekar in 2002 following the death of her mother. She told the commission that on November 8, 2001 the doctor, Hemant Kulkarni, conducted the surgery after another doctor he had referred them to could not remove the stones through the endoscopic retrograde cholangio pancreatography method. Savardekar alleged that Kulkarni’s nursing home was ill-equipped to deal with the removal and the doctor had failed to locate the stone.

Her mother had to be then referred to a hospital where she underwent two more operations on November 12 and 22, 2001 but despite these operations she died on November 27, 2001. Savardekar alleged that her father, who died two days before her mother died, actually succumbed to mental shock caused by her mother’s precarious health condition. She sought a compensation of Rs 15 lakh citing negligence.

In his response, Dr Kulkarni told the commission that after having obtained the fitness report from physicians for general anesthesia, he proceeded with the emergency surgery in full knowledge of the relatives of the patient.

His lawyer told the commission that despite the doctor’s best efforts, it was not possible to remove the stones due to severe inflammation. He denied that Dr Kulkarni’s nursing home was ill-equipped.

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A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao passed the order while acting on a PIL filed by Delhi-based dermatologist Zaheer Ahmed who complained that lakhs of medicines were being sold on the internet every day without much regulation, posing a huge risk to patients and doctors alike.